Do Individual Educational Trajectories Contribute to Better Student Skill Development: An Empirical Study in Russian Universities

In recent decades, an increasing number of educational programs offering students individual educational trajectories (IET) have appeared in Russian universities. It is believed that such programs better contribute to the development of students’ generic skills due to a personalized approach and providing students with wide opportunities to choose courses that match their interests. However, at this moment, there is no empirical evidence to support this thesis. In this work, based on survey data (N=1647 students) collected at seven Russian universities combining traditionally fixed-group programs with IET programs, the authors examined the relationship between students’ assessment of their universal skills development and their learning in IET programs. According to student evaluations, IET-based curricula fostered higher levels of cognitive, communicative, socioemotional and self-organization skills. These findings can be explained by the fact that such programs afford students broad opportunities for choice, which may more effectively enhance intrinsic motivation for university studying, as well as provide novel experiences distinct from those encountered in school, thereby facilitating more intensive development of the aforementioned skills. In the concluding section, we discuss recommendations for higher education institutions aimed at potentially augmenting the contribution of IET programs to students’ transferable skill development. The work is of interest to researchers in the field of higher education, university administrators, and university teachers aimed at developing student generic skills.